Psychology Today: How Bacteria Affect Our Health, Emotions, and Behavior

"A typical human cell consists of about 20,000-25,000 genes neatly packed in the DNA. Not only do those genes define who we are—but they also translate directly into our personalities, preferences, emotional experiences, pathologies, and behaviors.

Living within us, and vastly outnumbering our human genes, are trillions of bacteria, fungi, viruses, and parasites, collectively known as our “microbiota.” Our microbiota and their genes are known as our “microbiome.”

Our bodies harbor about 150 times the number of microbiota genes compared to human genes, which helps to explain the interest in exploring the role our microbiome plays in supporting and maintaining both our physical as well as mental health and of course, indirectly, our behavior.

The impact of the microbiome on mood and physical needs

There is obviously a direct correlation between a healthy body and a healthy microbiome; however, we want to understand beyond this superficial relationship. We know that microbes help us deal with everyday pathogens, digestion, and the extraction of vitamins from food; we want to know how they influence emotions, as well as psychiatric conditions such as depression and anxiety.

We cannot take the microbiome for granted, because inflammation and disruption to our microbiota colony can have serious and dangerous consequences. Cancers, inflammatory bowel diseases (IBD and Crohn's disease), autoimmune diseases, allergies (ranging from mild to life-threatening), psoriasis, and even brain and mood disorders are all possible consequences of microbiota disruption.

The role of the vagus nerve

The functions of the vagus nerve are extraordinarily impressive and complex, with the most important one being its ability to intimately bring together information from your inner organs to your brain.

This explains why when you are nervous—maybe you realize you made a huge mistake at work, your stomach feels noxious, your chest feels tight, perhaps you find yourself doing a very noticeable dry swallow, you feel choked up as you ponder how to fix this mess—this is all because from your gut to your brain you are super-connected via the vagus nerve.

Gut bacteria and serotonin

Serotonin, that wonderful little neurotransmitter/hormone that helps keep us happy. Our gut bacteria manufacture about 95 percent of our body’s supply of serotonin, and most of the serotonin in our body resides outside the brain.

That tension you may feel—that short fuse you sometimes express, that anger or depression you may experience, that lack of energy and drive you to go through on a given day—is a lot more complex than you ever thought."

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#Gut #Microbiome #Anxiety #Depression